Process plants, such as those used in chemical, petroleum or other industries, typically include one or more centralized or decentralized process controllers communicatively coupled to at least one host or operator workstation and to one or more process control and instrumentation devices, such as field devices, via analog, digital or combined analog/digital buses. Field devices, which may be, for example valves, valve positioners, switches, transmitters, and sensors (e.g., temperature, pressure and flow rate sensors), perform functions within the process such as increasing or decreasing fluid flow and measuring process parameters. The process controller receives signals indicative of process measurements or process variables made by or associated with the field devices and/or other information pertaining to the field devices, uses this information to implement a control routine and then generates control signals which are sent over one or more of the buses or other communication lines to the field devices to control the operation of the process. Information from the field devices and the controller is typically made available to one or more applications executed by operator workstations to enable an operator to perform desired functions with respect to the process, such as viewing the current state of the process, modifying the operation of the process, etc.
While a typical process plant has many process control and instrumentation devices, such as valves, transmitters, sensors, etc. connected to one or more process controllers which execute software that controls these devices during the operation of the process, there are many other supporting devices which are also necessary for or related to process operation. These additional devices include, for example, power supply equipment, power generation and distribution equipment, rotating equipment such as turbines, etc., which are located at numerous places in a typical plant. While this additional equipment does not necessarily create or use process variables and, in many instances, is not controlled or even coupled to a process controller for the purpose of affecting the process operation, this equipment is nevertheless important to and ultimately necessary for proper operation of the process.
As a result, many process plants, and especially those which use smart field devices, include applications that are used to help monitor and maintain the devices within the plant regardless of whether these devices are process control and instrumentation devices or are other types of devices. For example, the Asset Management Solutions (AMS) application sold by Emerson Process Management, enables communication with and stores data pertaining to field devices to ascertain and track the operating state of the field devices. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,214 entitled “Integrated Communication Network for use in a Field Device Management System.” In some instances, the AMS application may be used to communicate with devices to change parameters within the device, to cause the device to run applications on itself, such as self calibration routines or self diagnostic routines, to obtain information about the status or health of the device, etc. This information may be stored and used by a maintenance person to monitor and maintain these devices. Likewise, there are other types of applications which are used to monitor other types of devices, such as rotating equipment and power generation and supply devices. These other applications are typically available to the maintenance persons and are used to monitor and maintain the devices within a process plant. In many cases, however, outside service organizations may perform services related to monitoring process performance and equipment. In these cases, the outside service organizations acquire the data they need, run typically proprietary applications to analyze the data and merely provide results and recommendations to the process plant personnel.
Still further, many process plants have other computers associated therewith which execute applications related to business functions or maintenance functions. For example, some plants include computers which execute applications associated with ordering raw materials, replacement parts or devices for the plant, applications related to forecasting sales and production needs, etc.
Typically, the functions associated with the process control activities, the device and equipment maintenance and monitoring activities, and the business activities are separated, both in the location in which these activities take place and in the personnel who typically perform these activities. Furthermore, the different people involved in these different functions generally use different tools, such as different applications run on different computers, to perform the different functions. In many instances, these different tools collect or use different types of data associated with or collected from the devices or equipment within the process and are set up differently to collect the data they need. For example, process control operators who generally oversee the day to day operation of the process and who are primarily responsible for assuring the quality and continuity of the process operation typically affect the process by setting and changing set points within the process, tuning loops of the process, scheduling process operations such as batch operations, etc. These process control operators may use available tools for diagnosing and correcting process control problems within a process control system, including, for example, auto-tuners, loop analyzers, neural network systems, etc. Process control operators also receive process variable information from the process via one or more process controllers which provide information to the operators about the operation of the process, including alarms generated within the process. Still further, it is typical to provide control optimizers, such as real time optimizers, within a plant to optimize the control activities of the process plant. Such optimizers typically use complex models of the plant to predict how inputs may be changed to optimize operation of the plant with respect to some desired optimization variable such as, for example, profit. While this information may be provided to the process control operator via standard user interface devices, the process control operators are generally interested in viewing and accessing the information within the applications based on how the process plant is set up and configured from a control standpoint.
On the other hand, maintenance personnel who are primarily responsible for assuring that the actual equipment within the process is operating efficiently and for repairing and replacing malfunctioning equipment, use tools such as maintenance interfaces, the AMS application discussed above, as well and many other diagnostic tools which provide information about operating states of the devices within the process. Maintenance persons also schedule maintenance activities which may require shut down of portions of the plant. For many newer types of process devices and equipment, generally called smart field devices, the devices themselves may include detection and diagnostic tools which automatically sense problems with the operation of the device and automatically report these problems to a maintenance person via a standard maintenance interface. For example, the AMS software reports device status and diagnostic information to the maintenance person and provides communication and other tools that enable the maintenance person to determine what is happening in devices and to access device information provided by devices. Typically, maintenance interfaces and maintenance personnel are located apart from process control operators, although this is not always the case. For example, in some process plants, process control operators may perform the duties of maintenance persons or vice versa, or the different people responsible for these functions may use the same interface. None-the-less, maintenance personnel are typically interested in viewing and accessing the information from the applications available thereto based on how the equipment is set up or located in the plant, or on other logical bases related to the equipment within the plant. This organization is typically different than the control organization.
Still further, some tasks, such as monitoring equipment, testing the operation of devices, determining if the plant is running in an optimal manner, etc. are performed by outside consultants or service companies who measure the data needed, perform an analysis and then provide only the results of the analysis back to the plant personnel. In these cases, the data is typically collected and stored in a proprietary manner and may be organized in a still different manner as the organization of the data is geared to the particular application that is collecting, generating and using the data.
Many of the different applications discussed above use a navigational tree or other similar structure for organizing and enabling a user of the application to view and access the different data or information within or available to the application. In most cases, these navigational tree structures are similar in nature to the navigational tree structures used in Microsoft Outlook™, Windows™, etc., and are provided in these applications to enable a user to access or drill down into a relevant area, subarea, etc., of the plant to perform functions using the application. Usually, although not always, the applications use a navigational tree structure with nomenclature provided by the S88 standard, which logically divides a process plant into smaller and smaller entities, as, starting at the highest level, Enterprise, Site, Area, Process Cell, Unit, Equipment Module and Control Module. Applications using a navigational tree structure based on the S88 standard may provide some or all of these headings within a navigational tree to enable a user to access information or perform functions associated with the process plant.
Unfortunately, each of the different applications is generally different in the manner in which it uses and applies this navigation tree structure, including the names and, sometimes, the meaning of the names used therein, and is different in the manner in which it provides views of the data collected by that application. Thus, system level software applications provided for different uses within a plant, such as control applications, maintenance applications, optimization applications, power equipment monitoring applications, efficiency or plant monitoring applications, etc., may and generally do have a different way of organizing the data associated therewith. Moreover, customers may have a still different preferred manner of organizing the information pertaining to their plant, that may differ from any organization provided in any of the applications used in the plant.
Currently, plant operators, maintenance personnel, etc. must become accustomed to and remember the different manner in which the same or different information for a plant is available in and organized within the different applications used in the plant, even though, in some instances, some of the same information is stored in and used by those different applications. This makes cross use of these applications tedious and sometimes confusing. Furthermore, it makes it very difficult to organize the information provided from different applications in a single and consistent manner, or to enable a user to view the information from different sources, i.e., applications, using a single navigational tool.
However, there is currently a need by some users, such as persons responsible for business applications, like those which order parts, supplies, raw materials, or which assist in making strategic business decisions such as choosing which products to manufacture, what variables to optimize within the plant, etc., to have access to data from more than one of the applications discussed above, to thereby understand or view the operation of the plant from a higher level than provided by any of the individual applications within the plant. While, in the past, these persons have not had much access to the actual data generated within the plant by the different applications, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/087,308, entitled “Data Sharing in a Process Plant,” filed Mar. 1, 2002 and assigned to the assignee hereof, the disclosure of which is hereby expressly incorporated herein, discloses a method of combining the data from various different sources of data in a central database to make that data available on a more general basis to business personnel, as well as to the different users and applications within the process plant.
However, as noted above, the different applications collecting this data are designed to be used within the process plant to perform very different functions on, typically, a subset of the devices or equipment within the plant. The applications are, therefore, developed to organize and provide viewing of the data collected and generated thereby in sometimes slightly different and in sometimes very different manners. As a result, while these applications can share data with one another and with a centralized database, there is no simple technique of organizing the shared data in a manner that makes sense or is easy to use by a person viewing or accessing all of the data from the different applications or a way of presenting that data to a user in an organized and easily understood manner.